Striim: Connecting to the Console

I’ve been spending some time with Striim lately, testing it out for an Oracle to Snowflake replication setup. As I work through the platform, one of the first things I wanted to get comfortable with was the “console” option — the command line way of interacting with a Striim environment.

If you come from a GoldenGate background like I do, the console will feel familiar right away. Think of it as Striim’s equivalent to GGSCI (legacy GoldenGate) or AdminClient (current GoldenGate). It gives you a command line interface for working with the Striim environment without ever touching the web UI. For those of us who live in a terminal most of the day, that’s a welcome option.

Connecting to the console is straightforward once you know what you’re looking for. Let’s take a look at how this works.

Where the Console Lives

Everything starts in the bin directory of your Striim installation — what I’ll refer to as $STRIIM_HOME. This is where all the binaries for Striim are located, including the console.

To open the console, you simply use console.sh (or console.bat if you’re on Windows):

$ cd $STRIIM_HOME/bin
$ ./console.sh

The Interactive Connection

Once the console starts, you’re prompted with the following output:

bcurtis@Mac bin % ./console.sh
Welcome to the Striim Tungsten Command Line - Version 5.4.0.1 (03b9840790)
Required property "Cluster Name" is undefined
Enter Cluster Name [default bcurtis (Press Enter/Return to default)] :

At this point, the console walks you through a few prompts:

• Cluster Name — the name of the Striim environment you want to connect to. In my case, it’s called Bobby_Cluster.
• User Name — the user to connect as. Since this is a test setup running on my MacBook, I’m simply using admin.
• Password — the password for that user.

Here’s the catch, though. When the console tries to connect to the cluster, it looks on localhost (127.0.0.1) using port 9081. Those are the default settings. If your environment matches the defaults, you’re in. If not — like mine — you’ll need a different approach.

When Defaults Don’t Match Your Environment

In my case, I did some customization of the environment because I’m running Striim as a process directly on my MacBook. I changed the HTTP and HTTPS ports to 9294 and 9295 respectively, which means the interactive prompts alone won’t get me connected.

The easy fix is to call console.sh and provide connection options inline. To get a better picture of what’s available, run the help option:

bcurtis@Mac bin % ./console.sh -h
Option -h requires an argument.
Usage: ./console.sh [-c Cluster Name] [-i IP Address] [-u User Name] [-p User Password] [-S Striim Server Address] [-f TQL File] [-H Enable Https] [-t Http Port] [-T Https Port]

Now we can string together a few options to connect to the local cluster:

bcurtis@Mac bin % ./console.sh -c Bobby_Cluster -u admin -p *********** -S localhost -T 9295 -i 192.168.64.1

Note: The password (-p) is passed in clear text on the command line. I’m using stars (*) here just to illustrate. Keep this in mind in shared environments – command line arguments can show up in shell history and process listings.

A few key items to point out with these flags:

• -c — the cluster name. In this case, Bobby_Cluster
• -u — the user to connect as
• -p — the password for the connecting user
• -S — the server address of the Striim cluster
• -T — the HTTPS port to use
• -i — the IP address where Striim is running

By connecting this way, you can customize the login to match whatever your environment looks like — non-default ports, remote servers, HTTPS, you name it.

What a Successful Connection Looks Like

Once everything lines up, you should see output like this:

bcurtis@Mac bin % ./console.sh -c Bobby_Cluster -u admin -p ************* -S localhost -T 9295 -i 192.168.64.1
Welcome to the Striim Tungsten Command Line - Version 5.4.0.1 (03b9840790)
Connecting to cluster Bobby_Cluster.....connected.
Processing - use admin
Trusting all certificates configured for Client@6812c8cc[provider=null,keyStore=null,trustStore=null]
No Client EndPointIdentificationAlgorithm configured for Client@6812c8cc[provider=null,keyStore=null,trustStore=null]
-> SUCCESS
Elapsed time: 121 ms
Type 'HELP' to get some assistance, or enter commands below
W (admin) >

That W (admin) > prompt tells you you’re connected and ready to work. From here, typing help will list the commands available to you — a great starting point for exploring what the console can do.

The Connection Flow at a Glance

+-------------------+       -c / -u / -p        +---------------------------+
|   console.sh      | ------------------------> |   Striim Cluster          |
|  ($STRIIM_HOME/   |    -S server  -i IP       |   "Bobby_Cluster"       |
|      bin)         |    -T HTTPS port (9295)   |   default: 127.0.0.1:9081 |
+-------------------+                           +---------------------------+
         |                                                   |
         |                connected                          |
         +-----------------> W (admin) > <-------------------+

Wrapping It Up

If you’re a DBA getting started with Striim, the console is worth learning early. It maps nicely to the mental model most of us already have from tools like GGSCI or AdminClient, and it gives you a fast, scriptable way to interact with your Striim clusters. A few takeaways:

• The console lives in $STRIIM_HOME/bin -launch it with console.sh or console.bat
• Interactive prompts assume default settings (localhost:9081), which won’t fit every environment
• Inline options (-c, -u, -p, -S, -T, -i) let you tailor the connection to your setup
• console.sh -h shows the full usage, including TQL file execution with -f
• Once connected, help is your friend

How are you connecting to your Striim environments – web UI, console, or a mix of both? I’d enjoy hearing what’s working for you as I continue testing this platform out.

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